pr007 work product

Angel Winslow

Date: May 26, 2020

PR007: Developmentally Appropriate Practice for Preschoolers

Work Product (Part 2)

Part II: Observe and Critique a Literacy Lesson

A. Meet with the Teacher

In this lesson, the teacher was handling 7 students aged 4. Literacy standards targeted were Phonological Awareness:

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RF.1.2

Demonstrating an understanding of spoken words, syllables, and sounds (phonemes).

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RF.1.2.B

Orally producing single-syllable words through sound blend (phonemes)

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RF.1.2.C

Isolating and pronouncing initial, medial vowel, and final sounds (phonemes) in spoken single-syllable words.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RF.1.2.D

Segmenting spoken single-syllable words into the full sequence of individual sounds (phonemes).

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RF.1.3.B.G

Decoding recurrently spelled one-syllable words and the irregularly spelled ones

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RF.1.3.E

Decoding two-syllable words based on the basic patterns by breaking the words into syllables.

The learning objectives in the study were also established in line with the grade level, the duration of the lesson, the content to be covered and the state standards.

B. Critique the Lesson Plan

The teacher used activities and strategies such as narrating simple tales, creating sentences about words the teacher presented, reading out words, and writing words the teacher asked the children to. The lesson plan covered 50 minutes with the lesson introduced through a recall of children doing self-introduction, reception of a special guest, and meeting a stranger they have to take round. Therefore, the students had to pick cards and read them out loudly, create a sentence, and everyone in class writes it. This was a good strategy for it allowed every learner to participate but limited interest in lesson. Again there were two children who were second language children and they really seemed to struggle to catch up with the rest. Even though they took part in the task, they needed to either have been helped before, or have the teacher give them more time.

The lesson had well allocated time for introduction, individual activity, informal assessments, reflection, and formal assessment. Furthermore, the lesson plan considered that an extension of the lesson was necessary especially as a result of certain children missing out on the adequate practice.

Activities such as creating a song on paper and trying to sing it, having an amateur journalist, a cook who is directing the rest of the students or a specialist on Covid -19 among the children are among the play which could help in learning. They cover almost all the demands of the lesson and are interesting. They also cover for both the regular children and enhance differentiation or rather inclusivity. It could also be important for the teacher to have the children

The informal assessment took the form of students classifying words based on the kind of phoneme. They also read out words from the chart that the teacher hang in class and students were told to write words based on the sound the teacher gave. To accommodate of varied children the teacher did not only speak out the sounds but also showed them to the learners. According to Tomlinson, et al. (2003) effective differentiation should vary materials, use variable pacing, be learner centered, and knowledge-centered. Because of this informal assessment, the teacher had to have word charts

C. Critique the Lesson Implementation

There was success in the implementation of the lesson with few gaps. For example, children were moderately engaged in the lesson for they raised their hands, wrote what the teacher wrote, and spoke when necessary. However, there was a learner who appeared bored and switched off from the lesson after the first 15 minutes. The teacher had to call her name often for her to focus a suitable strategy of engaging learners (Gray & Madson, 2007). When the teacher checked her book, this learner had not written everything that had been taught. The teacher noticed later that this learner had a disability that made her restless and unless engaged in activities that attract her she cannot be part of such a lesson.

Another learner kept looking at others and responding after others had already done so. It seemed she was a slow learner who needed more time to comprehend what the teacher was teaching, yet the teacher had not paid attention to such a situation.

Nevertheless, majority of the children correctly sung, formed sentences, connected pictures with the learned vocabulary and looked at charts whenever required. Because of learner differences, the teacher should have also included tasks where the children draw pictures of the body parts as well as use crayons to make their own colors.

D. Evaluate the Results of the lesson

The usage of varied strategies is a strong method that enabled the children to participate in the less and engage in the activities that were put in the lesson plan. However, they kept the SLL out of it totally. Besides, these strategies were too many that they exhausted both the teacher and the learners.

The learning objectives were averagely achieved as students could categorize words wrongs, have difficulty in engaging phonemes that were irregular and had low fluency in their narrations. It could require more lesson and separation of the regular and irregularly formed phonemes for the children to achieve the objectives maximally.

References

Gray, T. & Madson, L. (2007). Ten easy ways to engage your students. College Teaching. 55 (2).83-87. DOI: 10.3200/CTCH.55.2.83-87

Fink, D. L. (2005). Integrated course design. Manhattan, KS: The IDEA Center. Retrieved from http://www.ideaedu.org/Portals/0/Uploads/Documents/IDEA%20Papers/IDEA%20Papers/Idea_Paper_42.pdf

Labtech, B. (2018).Play and theories of play: A review of literature. Early Child Development and Care.39 (1).DOI: 10.1080/0300443880390117

Tomlinson, C.A., Brighton, C., Hertberg, H., Callahan, C.M., Moon, T.R. et al. (2003) differentiating instruction in response to student readiness, interest, and learning profile in academically diverse classrooms: A Review of Literature. Journal for the Education of the Gifted. 27, 2/3, 119-145.

Kearsley, G. (2003). The Theories. Retrieved from http://tip.psychology.org/theories.htmlF

Milkova, S. (2018). Strategies for effective lesson planning. Retrieved from https://sites.tufts.edu/teaching/files/2018/07/GSI_Guidebook_37-39.pdf